


when your heart was an open book

by glorious_spoon



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Rescue, Revenge, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 07:55:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13049781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/pseuds/glorious_spoon
Summary: Victoria Vinciguerra survived the destruction of the Diadema, and now she's out for revenge. Meanwhile, Napoleon and Illya have lost all measure of objectivity, and Gaby is thoroughly sick of this nonsense.





	when your heart was an open book

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deinvati](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deinvati/gifts).



The men who pull her from the water are gentle, but Victoria shoves their hands off as soon as she’s aware of what’s going on. The blue sky spins above her, and her lips are bitter with brine.

“Signora—”

A gabble of voices, weathered bearded faces crowding her field of vision.

“Signora, quello che è successo? Sei ferito?”

“Lasciami andare,” Victoria spits, sitting up, and the man jerks his hand away. “You will take me to shore immediately.”

She’s accustomed to giving orders, and the men obey with alacrity even though she is sodden and alone and has nothing, right now, to enforce her authority. Painfully, she climbs to her feet. There’s still smoke lingering in the sky, floating wreckage that is all that remains of the _Diadema._ No sign of the Royal Navy vessel, more’s the pity.

No matter. She still has resources, squirreled away for just this eventuality. Dear, brash Alexander was always oblivious to the possibility of failure, but Victoria has plans upon plans. This is a setback, but she’ll survive. She’ll have her husband buried. She’ll go to ground. And then, she will plot the most exquisite revenge that any man has ever experienced.

Napoleon Solo will never see it coming.

* * *

His only warning is a flash of light out of the corner of his eye, high up a sheer rock face where no light should be.

It’s been over fifteen years since his time on the Eastern Front. If pressed, Napoleon would probably say that the war has left few marks on him; he doesn’t flinch at gunshots or the sight of blood. His sleep is rarely disturbed by unpleasant dreams.

The reflexes, however, remain. His shoulder hits Illya’s midsection before he’s conscious of moving, a graceless schoolyard tackle, and it’s probably surprise more than anything that has Illya’s knees folding, that has his long form crashing to the rocky ground with Napoleon on top of him. The _crack_ of a gunshot echoes through the canyon an instant later.

In the stillness that follows, Napoleon is strangely aware of the sound of his own breathing, the warmth of Illya’s body where they’re pressed together. It’s just for a moment, though, before Illya’s large hands come up to shove at him; he rolls away, drawing his gun, pulling himself up to his knees and scanning the cliff above them for movement. There is none. A bushy tangle of foliage tops the ravine like an unkempt head of hair, and the gunman has vanished into it without a trace.

Beside him, Illya mutters a curse in Russian and holsters his own gun. Napoleon glances up at him. His blond hair is mussed and blood is beading on an ugly scrape across the side of his face, but he’s otherwise uninjured.

Napoleon takes a deep breath, then lets it out. His heart, he realizes, is pounding.

“Well,” he says after a long moment. “I think our cover is blown.”

* * *

 “I don’t care,” Gaby snaps into the phone as Napoleon pours himself a generous measure of scotch. “Until you can tell us _how_ this happened, I will not be trusting your informants, Alexander!”

 _Alexander?_ Napoleon mouths at Illya, who shakes his head, scowling.

Ah. Best to keep well away from that one. “Whiskey?” he asks, instead.

“An old woman’s drink,” Illya says, but he takes the bottle that Napoleon offers and drinks directly from it without bothering with a glass. The scrape across the left side of his face has stopped bleeding, but it still looks raw and unpleasant. There’s a shivery, awful sort of relief still twisting in his gut every time he looks at Illya, battered and exasperated but still safe and whole. He’s doing his level best to ignore it.

“You won’t be winning any beauty contests anytime soon,” he observes. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

“For what?”

“For saving your life, of course. Heroically.”

“What makes you so sure it was me he was shooting at?” Illya retorts. It’s a fair point. The last three times they’ve been unexpectedly shot at, Napoleon _was_ the target, but on the other hand, he’s fairly sure he hasn’t left any irate lovers behind in Szczawnica. It’s a charming little town; he’d remember it if he spent enough time here to make any mortal enemies. Although one could certainly have followed him here. Or perhaps their mark is more competent than he lets on; it’s been known to happen.

“At any rate,” he says, magnanimously ignoring the bait, “I think we’ll have to rethink our strategy. _Someone_ is clearly quite annoyed with at least one of us.”

“We’re getting another room,” Gaby interjects, striding over and plucking the whiskey out of Illya’s hand. “Waverly is quite sure that none of his informants have been compromised, but I insisted. You’re welcome.”

“Waverly?” Napoleon asks innocently. “Oh, you mean _Alexander?_ ”

Gaby just gives him an arch look. “I’m keeping this,” she says, indicating the bottle. “You have ten minutes to get packed.”

She sails out of the room, bottle in hand, before he can protest.

“That’s a twenty-year-old scotch,” Napoleon calls after her. “Be sure to give it the attention it deserves.” And then, to Illya’s studious deadpan, “Don’t start.”

Illya’s lips quirk into a slight smile as he stands. “Come on, Cowboy, let’s pack up. It would not do to keep Gaby waiting.”

* * *

 The second set of rooms they get are smaller, darker, and considerably more spartan in their appointments than the first. Napoleon bemoans the quality of the sheets and the lack of closet space until Illya rolls his eyes and Gaby shoves the rest of the whiskey in his direction, but he’s glad of the change, all the same. Gaby booked the rooms through a third party; nobody who’s looking for them ought to be able to connect them to this place.

That night, the three of them crowd around the tiny kitchenette in Illya’s room to listen to the bug Napoleon planted on Józef Kozłowski, a local merchant with a number of suspicious ties to German terrorist cells.

There’s nothing especially juicy on the recordings, but they do manage to confirm a delivery two days hence, and Napoleon takes himself off to bed buoyed by good whiskey and the warm satisfaction of a job falling neatly into place.

He wakes, not quite two hours later, to Gaby’s hands on his shoulders, shaking him roughly.

“Illya is gone,” she tells him when he blinks the sleep out of his eyes and pulls himself upright to peer at her.

“Gone?” Napoleon asks. “I take it you don’t mean for a midnight stroll—”

“Arschloch.” Her hair is a tangled mess and her face is drawn and frightened in a way that makes Napoleon’s heart thump sharply with something that feels a lot like fear. “I mean he’s _gone._ Taken. His room has been tossed, and the door is broken, and there’s blood. Okay? Get out of bed. Now.”

* * *

 It’s not a lot of blood.

There’s a smear on the inside handle of the shattered door, spatters on the sheets, which have been half ripped off of the bed. The floor lamp has been knocked over, and glittering shards of glass litter the carpet. Napoleon, in his stocking feet, gives them a wide berth, but they crunch beneath Gaby’s heels.

“I heard shouting,” she says, turning in the middle of the room. “Four men, maybe five. Polish.” Her hands are empty, open, and she sounds a little lost. Like the little chop-shop girl in way over her head, and not at all like their sharp-tongued, quick-witted, confident Gaby. Napoleon knows that he should go to her, put his hands on her shoulders, tell her— what? That they’ll find Illya? That he’ll be okay?

There’s blood on the doorknob, and on the sheets, and he’s never seen Illya lose a fight.

“Kozłowski,” he says.

Gaby turns to him. “What?”

“Mr. Kozłowski,” Napoleon repeats. He tears his eyes away from the spatters of red on the pillowcase. It’s not that much; not enough for a gunshot. Any assassin with half a brain would have shot Illya while he slept; that they took him instead is a good sign. It means they want him for something. It means he’s still alive. “Our friendly local weapons financer. I think we ought to pay him a visit.”

Illya had damn well better still be alive.

“You think he knows something?” Gaby asks.

“I think he’s the best lead we have right now.”

“Will he talk?”

“Oh,” Napoleon says, and the words feel sharp and brittle on his tongue, like something inside him is beginning to crack, a dangerous fault line. “I’m sure we can persuade him.”

* * *

 Józef Kozłowski lives in a large timber-frame house on the outskirts of town. Napoleon scoped it out when they first set up shop here, but he hasn’t been inside yet. It’s Kozłowski’s business associates they’re interested in, not his personal affairs, and Illya gets annoyed when he burgles their targets unless it’s in the service of the job.

He’s not quite sure when that started mattering to him, but it does. Symptomatic of a larger problem, most likely; in their line of work, it’s a terrible idea to get this attached.

Case in point: their current predicament. Illya is trained to withstand interrogation, and whoever took him obviously wanted him alive. He’s been gone less than three hours. Napoleon has been repeating this to himself over and over for the twenty minutes it took them to steal a car and drive over here. It hasn’t helped a bit with the panic riding like a stone in the pit of his stomach.

This kind of fear makes people stupid.

It takes him all of thirty seconds to pick the lock, Gaby close at his shoulder, almost breathing down his neck. He’s not normally bothered by distractions but it takes almost everything he has not to shove her back.

Finally, the door swings open into darkness. Napoleon draws his gun, and steps silently inside. The entryway is a long, dark hallway, but there’s light coming in from under the door at the other end. Keeping his gun at the ready, Napoleon tries the handle. It’s unlocked.

On the other side, Józef Kozłowski is sitting at the kitchen table, a single lamp illuminating his face in slices of light and shadow. He’s alone, as far as Napoleon can tell, and he doesn’t look surprised to see them.

Gaby kicks the door shut behind her and steps forward so she’s shoulder-to-shoulder with Napoleon, every inch of her slender frame radiating aggression. “Where is he?”

Kozłowski looks down at the table. There’s a file folder on the polished wooden surface. “You should know, I didn’t want this. It was not my plan. I am a small business man. I make a little money on the side, that is all. I don’t want for anyone to get hurt.”

“It’s a little late for regrets, don’t you think?” Napoleon asks. Blood is pounding in his ears, but he’s not Illya. He can control his temper. “Just tell us where our partner is. Make this easy on yourself.”

“Oh, I’m afraid it’s _much_ too late for that,” says another voice, a coolly sweet female voice. The sound of it sends a chill of recognition down his spine, but he doesn’t make the connection until a pale, slender shape detaches itself from the shadowy hallway at the other end of the room. Lamplight glints in her golden hair, and on the glittering chains draped around her throat. She looks exactly as she did the last time he saw her, squinting through a drug-addled haze in the bowels of a Vinciguerra warehouse.

Beside him, Gaby stifles a curse.

“Victoria,” Napoleon says blankly. “This is... unexpected.”

Victoria Vinciguerra smiles like a shark. “I imagine so,” she purrs. “It’s been far too long, Napoleon. Thank you for coming so quickly; it makes things _so_ much simpler for me.”

Her eyes flick over his shoulder. There’s a rustle in the hallway behind him, heavy footsteps on the wooden floor, and he begins to turn, lifting his pistol. Before he can, a thick arm wraps around his throat, there’s a sharp pinch under his jaw, and the world warps, turns fuzzy, and then black.

He’s aware of his knees collapsing beneath him, and then he knows no more.

* * *

 Illya comes awake slowly to a pounding skull, the taste of blood on his lips. He’s been stripped to his underclothes, the air around him is clammy and dank, and cold metal bites into his skin. Voices drift past his head, and it takes him several long, confused moments to sort them out into intelligible words. English, but not American, and not familiar.

“...waking up any moment now, ma’am.”

“He’d better. If he dies before the show even starts, I’ll be very unhappy.”

The second voice is a woman’s, cold and patrician and authoritative. It takes Illya a moment to place it, and when he does, he jerks involuntarily against his restraints. Metal bites into his wrists and ankles, and some thick strap constricts his chest, making it impossible to take a full breath. His head _cracks_ back against something hard, sending another bolt of pain through his temples.

“Ah,” the woman says, sounding pleased. “He lives!”

Since there is clearly no point in attempting to feign unconsciousness, Illya opens his eyes. The room is small and dark, lit only by a single bare bulb. Towering over him is a woman he’s only seen in photographs, a ghost in white silk, heavy-lidded eyes and glittering jewels.

She is tall, slender and languid, a small smile curled into the corners of her perfect mouth. “I don’t believe we’ve met in person,” she says. “Victoria Vinciguerra.”

Illya spits the cottony dryness from his tongue. “You are supposed to be dead.”

“Supposed to be,” she agrees, still smiling. “It’s just unfortunate for you that your dear Napoleon isn’t _nearly_ as good at spycraft as he is in bed. Although I suppose you know that, don’t you?”

Even under the circumstances, he can feel a hot flush burn through his face. He doesn’t answer.

Victoria Vinciguerra chuckles. “No? My goodness, what a waste. All that good Soviet self-denial, and you still ended up right here.”

“What do you want?” he snarls.

“Well. I’ve made Napoleon Solo a promise, Mr. Kuryakin. And I _always_ keep my promises.”

“What is that supposed to—”

Before he can finish the sentence, the door creaks open. Two men in tactical gear come through; they’re carrying the limp body of a third man. He’s barefoot, dressed in gray silk pajamas. His head lolls back, and Illya can see his pale, slack face: it’s Napoleon.

The men toss him in the corner like a sack of grain, and his head bounces sharply off the concrete floor. He doesn’t stir.

“Restrain him, please,” Victoria says, over her shoulder, and it’s all Illya can do to conceal the sudden flood of relief. If he needs to be restrained, that means he’s alive. For a moment, it seemed as though—

He does not allow himself to finish the thought. “Where is Gaby?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Victoria says lightly, as the two men shackle Napoleon, wrist and ankle. The sturdy chains are bolted to the wall; it would be overkill even for Illya. There’s no way Napoleon will be able to break them. “She’ll be joining us soon enough. Not that I expect you to be in any condition to appreciate it by then.”

“What do you want?” he asks again.

Victoria leans forward until her face is only inches from his own. For a moment, he thinks she’s about to kiss him, or perhaps bite him, but she only places a slender finger over his lips. Her skin is cool, almost clammy, and something in him recoils in atavistic dread. This woman must be half his weight, if that, but if he had enough room to move, he’d flinch away. There’s something deeply unsettling about her, some awful blankness behind her pretty blue eyes. In his line of work, he’s met many monsters; enough to know one when he sees one, no matter how much jewelry she drapes over herself.

Distractedly, he wonders how even a man like Napoleon could bring himself to touch her intimately. For all her beauty, the very idea of it turns his stomach.

“Hush,” she whispers, and taps his lips again, and stands, addressing her guards. “Someone fetch me a bucket of ice water. Or a cattle-prod. I don’t much care which. It’s time the guest of honor joined us.”

One of the men detaches a baton from his belt and hands it to her. Victoria fondles if for a moment, inspecting it like an _apparatchik_ with a fine smuggled cigar. Then, she uses the handle to push up Napoleon’s shirt, exposing his belly— winter-pale, a line of dark hair descending from his navel into the waistband of his pants, horribly vulnerable.

She flips the baton neatly in her hand and jams the pronged end into his flesh.

The crackle of electricity snaps through the air, and Napoleon comes awake with a shout. For a moment, his eyes flicker wildly about the room, and then they settle, finally, on Illya. For a moment, he actually looks ill, his wan face going several shades paler, and then he draws himself upright, pulling his dignity about him like a tattered cloak. Even Illya can see the fear leaking out around the edges, though, and he realizes with a start that most of it is for him. “Victoria, is this spectacle really necessary?”

“I could kill him quickly, if you prefer,” Victoria purrs. “Gaby, too. They’re nothing to me. But you don’t want that, do you? All that American optimism— surely you want to give them the chance to stage a daring escape worthy of Mr. Fleming? Even if they do get a little— hmm — _damaged_ in the meantime?”

Napoleon coughs, then says, “Ian Fleming was English.”

Of course the idiot can’t stop mouthing off even in the face of death. He’s constitutionally incapable of shutting up.

Victoria snorts delicately. “Oh, I’ve forgotten what a delight you are.” And then, to one of the guards, “You can start with his fingers.”

Illya jolts forward uselessly in his chair, a curse forming on his lips, until he realizes that the guard isn’t heading for Napoleon, but for him.

Ah. Now he sees the shape of the plan. So be it; he’s been injured before. He closes his eyes, and resolutely does not think of how quickly he could be maimed to the point of uselessness. When the guard snaps his little finger with a sharp jerk, he does not allow himself to make a sound.

A second finger. The crack of breaking bone is clean and sharp; unpleasant, but impermanent. Amateurs. The KGB would have used a hammer and smashed the joints to irreparable dust. This will heal in a few weeks. Maybe less. He’s done worse to himself punching walls.

Victoria’s breath tickles his ear, warm and scented with strong coffee and expensive perfume. He didn’t even hear her move. “Aren’t you the stoic one,” she breathes.

Illya leans away from her. “You are like a spoiled child pulling legs off of insects.”

“Mm. Indelicate, but accurate, I suppose. Don’t worry.” She raises her voice slightly— to make sure that Napoleon hears, he thinks. “This is only the appetizer. We haven’t gotten to the main course yet.”

The guard breaks another finger. Illya flexes them experimentally. They’re already starting to swell; if he doesn’t get loose soon, he won’t be able to make a fist with his left hand. That will complicate their escape.

Still. Better him than Napoleon. It’s not quite the ruthless calculation it should be; he can fight while injured, but so can Napoleon. For all his affectations, the American has a spine of steel. It is simply better to experience pain than to watch as it is inflicted on Napoleon.

Proof, not that he needs it, that he has lost all measure of objectivity here.

A fourth finger, and then his thumb; a messier break this time, possibly a dislocation, and there are no useful fingers on his left hand. He waits for them to start on the right, but for a long moment they do nothing, and that is worse. Illya breathes in and out to a slow count, and when he reaches twenty without being touched, he opens his eyes.

The dark room seems full of color after the black insides of his eyelids. Napoleon is staring at him from the far wall. The lines of his face are taut, drawn in sharp angles and shadows; his curly dark hair is an unruly mess, his lips parted. Illya meets his gaze steadily. His left hand is throbbing, the pain dull and distant. He feels trapped, hypnotized by the blueness of Napoleon’s eyes, the unnameable emotion lurking there. It is strange to see him without a smile and a cutting joke on his lips; he looks younger like this.

“Well,” murmurs Victoria’s voice from behind him. “Isn’t this a touching scene.”

Napoleon’s eyes flick up to her, his face shuttering. He licks his lips. “This is completely unnecessary. Victoria, this is unnecessary. I’m the one you want, not him. Not Gaby. They haven’t done anything to you.”

“On the contrary, darling. If nothing else, they’ve cost me a great deal of money and inconvenience. And more to the point, they’re dear to you. They’ve wormed their way into that shriveled little heart of yours, and I intend to use them to tear it out. Simply _killing_ you would miss the point, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” Napoleon says, after a moment. “I suppose it would. Do you want me to beg?”

“Oh, that _would_ be fun. By all means, beg. It won’t work, but what have you got to lose? Besides your dignity, that is.”

Napoleon presses his lips together, and closes his eyes, turns his face to the stone wall. “Please,” he says quietly. “Let him go. Let them both go. You can keep me to settle your score, but let them go.”

Victoria circles around in front of Illya, so close that the flowing silk of her gown brushes his mangled hand. She crosses the room to kneel down in front of Napoleon, tips his chin up with one slender finger, and leans in until they’re almost kissing, close enough to share breath. Illya can’t hear what she murmurs to him, but he can see the way Napoleon jerks back against the wall, recoiling as if he’s been shocked again.

Victoria smiles beatifically, and stands.

“Gun,” she says to one of the guards, and he unholsters his sidearm and hands it to her.

“No,” Napoleon says, and he sounds suddenly desperate, raw and frantic in a way that Illya has never heard. “No, Victoria, _please—_ ”

“Now _that’s_ what I call begging,” she says sweetly, and turns the gun on Illya. Her hand is perfectly steady. The woman was the mastermind of a criminal empire; there’s no reason to think that she can’t shoot, but even if she couldn’t, it would be impossible to miss at this range. Her finger tightens on the trigger; her smile is like poison. “Goodbye, Mr. Kuryakin.”

Illya closes his eyes, and the sound of the gunshot echoes through the small room.

At first it’s just the shock of impact, like a fist to the gut. Then the pain comes, blooming out from his midsection like a poison flower. Instinctively, he tries to fold around the injury, but the band around his chest prevents it; he’s gagging, unable to draw breath, and over the roaring in his ears he can hear Napoleon yelling, but he can’t sort the words into any kind of sense.

Gut shot. Fatal, at least without treatment, but not instantly. Like a child pulling the legs off of insects, indeed.

The roaring is getting louder. Spots swim in front of his eyes, his vision going dark around the edges. Shouting, there’s so much shouting— not just Napoleon, now, he can hear Victoria’s voice too, going high and loud with outrage, and then an impact shudders through the room like the hammer of the gods, jolting his chair over onto its side, and his world goes abruptly dark.

* * *

 Napoleon is still blinking the settling dust out of his eyes when someone grabs him hard by both shoulders. His hands and wrists are still cuffed, so he flings his head forward blind. Hits nothing but air.

“Stop that,” snaps Gaby, shaking him again. Napoleon squints up at her, and… huh. There’s a very large hole in the brick wall, letting in a cool breeze, a whole hell of a lot of dust, and the faint rosy fingers of dawn. Most of the space is still taken up by what looks like a large piece of farm equipment. The metal nose is mangled and covered in brick dust. Men in suits are climbing awkwardly over the rubble, guns out. One of them gives Gaby a sharp nod as he passes.

“Did you…” Napoleon shakes his head. His ears are ringing, and his thoughts feel shuddery and strange, disconnected from each other. “Did you just drive a tractor through the wall?”

“Yes,” Gaby says, “but this is not the right place for the story. Let’s get you out of here. Where’s Illya?”

Oh, God. Illya.

“There, he’s right there—”

He jerks his chin at the center of the room, where Illya is collapsed in an ungainly heap, half under his overturned chair. His long bare limbs are sprawled out awkwardly on the dirty floor, and blood is pooling beneath him. From here, it’s impossible to see if he’s still breathing.

“ _Scheiße_ ,” Gaby hisses, releasing him. She crosses the room in two long strides to kneel beside Illya and press her fingers to his throat. After a moment that seems to last forever, she says, “He’s alive.”

Napoleon lets out a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding. “Get him out of here. We’ll need an immediate extraction—”

“The helicopter is already here,” Gaby says shortly, busying herself with Illya’s handcuffs. Napoleon watches as first one hand, then the other drops limply when she releases them. Next are the ankle cuffs, and then the strap around his chest. When he’s loose, she gently disentangles him from the chair, then collars the nearest suited agent. “Pieter, fetch a stretcher. Agent Kuryakin will need transport right away.”

The man obeys with impressive alacrity, considering that Gaby is about a foot and a half shorter than him and still wearing her pajamas. She’s certainly never had any trouble giving orders— or, apparently, arranging their escape from inside a bunker cell. It’s not the first time an opponent has thoroughly and catastrophically underestimated their Gaby. Under different circumstances, it would be amusing.

“He’s okay?” Napoleon asks, and he can hear the waver in his own voice, the kind of childish fear he thought he left behind in the battlefields of France a decade and more ago.

“He’s alive,” Gaby says again, without turning. Her voice is flat, but her hand is trembling when she pushes Illya’s tousled blond hair out of his face. The tenderness of the gesture prods at something unexpectedly painful in Napoleon’s chest, but he squashes it down ruthlessly and without examination. Now is _not_ the time.

There’s a low groan, and Illya’s bare feet kick against the concrete floor. “Что—” He breaks off with a cough, then a pained noise that he doesn’t quite manage to swallow. “What happened?”

“You were shot,” Gaby says. “Hold still.”

“Cowboy?”

“He’s fine. Hold still.”

“I’m here, Peril,” Napoleon adds. Illya rolls his head over to look at him with dazed blue eyes. His skin is pale, an unpleasant contrast to the blood still oozing from the wound in his gut. It’s not black, so that means that the liver wasn’t perforated. Illya is still conscious, still coherent. He’ll be okay. He’ll be fine.

Black-clad medics are swarming in, and Napoleon watches as they cluster around Illya’s body, blocking his view of everything but Illya’s mangled left hand. One of them speaks briefly into his radio, and then they heave him onto a stretcher and bear him out through the shattered wall. Gaby wavers, looking over her shoulder.

“Go,” Napoleon says. They don’t have time for this, and one of them should be with Illya. “I’ll be fine. Go with him.”

Her jaw firms, and she nods sharply, and then she’s gone, too.

Napoleon puts his head back against the stone wall, closes his eyes, and waits for someone to get around to releasing him.

It’s several minutes before someone approaches with a slow, measured tread. From above his head, there’s a deeply exasperated sigh. “Solo, I do wish we could stop meeting under these circumstances.”

“Waverly,” Napoleon says, and opens his eyes. The division chief is standing over him in his shirt sleeves, looking tired, annoyed, and uncharacteristically rumpled. “Believe me, the feeling is entirely mutual. I hope we didn’t interrupt your beauty sleep.”

“As it happens, you did.”

“Sorry about that.” Napoleon peers around the room. There are a couple of uniformed thugs in handcuffs, but no elegant blonde in a silk dress. “I see Victoria has eluded capture yet again.”

“Yet again,” Waverly says, sourly. “I’m rather tempted to leave you here, you know. But I suppose Gaby would fuss.”

“I suppose she would,” Napoleon agrees, rattling his chains. “And I can tell you from experience that it’s a bad idea to vex a lover who has access to high explosives.”

Waverly rolls his eyes, but doesn’t deny the charge. Interesting. It would be a hell of a lot more interesting if Napoleon could focus on any damn thing at all other than the memory of Illya’s gray face and the echoing sound of a gunshot in close quarters.

“So,” he says. “How about letting me out?”

“I suppose I’d better,” Waverly says tiredly, and waves over a uniform. “Please release Agent Solo and see him on the first transport back to town. He ought to be in hospital.”

“I’m not injured,” Napoleon points out.

Waverly eyes him with visible disgust. “Precisely how stupid do you think I am? I’ll expect your report promptly once you’re done mooning over Kuryakin’s bedside. You’re of no use to me whatsoever in this state.”

He’s gone before Napoleon can even begin to formulate a retort.

* * *

 Gaby is sitting on a metal chair in the waiting room when he finally makes it to the hospital, barefoot, still in his pajamas, and more disheveled than he’s been in public in quite some time. She stands when she sees him, twisting her hands together, and the fear that’s been riding in the back of Napoleon’s throat rises up to choke him. Some of that must show on his face, because she holds up both hands, shakes her head.

“No, no. He’s— they said he should be fine.” She wipes at her face with one dirty hand, leaving streaks of grime behind. Her eyes are red. “He’s out of surgery now and they said he should be fine.”

“Oh,” Napoleon says, and finds his knees beginning to give out; he grabs for the back of the nearest chair and very nearly misses, but he manages to get himself seated before he collapses in a heap on the tile floor. It’s the exhaustion and the drugs. Mostly. “He’s okay?”

“He’ll be fine,” Gaby repeats again, sinking into the chair next to him. She reaches for his hand and squeezes it tightly between both of hers. “He was asking for you.”

“He was awake?”

“For a little bit, in the helicopter.”

“I see,” Napoleon says, and leans over to rest his head against Gaby’s shoulder. She smells like dirt and blood, and she doesn’t shove him off; instead, her hand finds its way into his hair, petting gently like he’s her child, or perhaps a pitiful-looking stray cat. Eventually, he asks, “How did you get out?”

Gaby is silent for a moment, and then she says, “Alexander has a tracker in my necklace.”

“Does he?” Napoleon murmurs. “How romantic.”

“Don’t be rude.”

Napoleon pushes himself upright, blinks down at her for a moment. “You’re serious.”

“Yes,” Gaby says tartly. She’s fingering the necklace in question; a simple chain with a bob pendant. She’s been wearing it often, recently; Napoleon notices jewelry, but this is silver plated, practically worthless for his purposes. Sentimental, or so he assumed. Certainly not worth the trouble to steal.

Actually, he assumed that it was something Illya had gotten for her. He should have known better. Illya has considerably better taste in fashion than this.

“Really?” he asks, after a long moment.

“What?”

“ _Waverly?_ Really?”

“Yes,” she says coolly. “Really. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“What about you and Peril?”

Gaby twists around to look at him. She opens her mouth, shuts it, and stares at him for a long moment. “You are,” she says at length, “ _such_ an idiot.”

“Accurate, but uncalled for. Have I missed something? The last I knew, the pair of you were quite cozy.” Although, looking back, they haven’t been alone together since Paris. He assumed they were being discreet, but considering that neither Gaby nor Illya would know subtlety if it slapped their bottoms and insulted their mothers, perhaps he should have been paying more attention.

Perhaps he should have been paying more attention to a lot of things.

“We broke up three months ago,” Gaby says. “Because of you. So yes, I would say you missed something.”

“Because of me?”

“You’re not stupid, stop acting like it. Also, maybe kiss him already. Since he already got shot because of you. God knows _he_ won’t do anything about it, but one of you should.”

“I, uh.” Napoleon shakes his head. He’d argue, but really, Gaby is right. He has been acting like an idiot about this, and being willfully oblivious hasn’t actually saved them any trouble, in the end. “I’ll consider it.”

“Good,” Gaby says pointedly. “I don’t want to hear about this anymore. I have my own problems, you know. And you two are supposed to be adults.”

After a moment, Napoleon puts a careful arm around her narrow shoulders. She looks up at him suspiciously, but doesn’t shove him away. “Hey. Thanks for getting us out of there. For a moment there, I thought we were in real trouble.”

At that, finally, she unbends enough to smile at him. “Of course.”

* * *

 It’s at least an hour later before they’ll let him in to see Illya. Gaby hangs back at the doorway, giving him a pointed look, and Napoleon sighs. “All right, all right.”

He steps inside and pulls the door closed behind him. It’s a small room, dim with the shades drawn. Illya’s long frame barely fits in the hospital bed, but he looks somehow shrunken all the same. He’s wearing a hospital smock and his splinted left hand is resting on top of the sheets. His eyes are closed, and Napoleon hesitates in the doorway for several moments before Illya says, without opening his eyes, “I can hear you thinking, Cowboy. Either come in or go away. I’m very tired.”

Napoleon takes a deep breath, lets it out, and approaches. Up close, Illya looks even worse. There are deep thumbprints of bruises under his eyes, and he smells like hospital soap and antiseptics; he looks more defenseless than Napoleon can ever remember seeing him, and there’s something deeply unsettling about it.

“Sorry,” he offers.

“Why?” Illya asks, opening his eyes at last. He looks honestly perplexed.

Of course he does, stoic, aggravating man that he is.

“Well, I did get you shot.”

Illya shrugs a little with one shoulder; Napoleon doesn’t miss the slight wince that follows. “I have been shot before. It was not your doing.”

“Not directly.”

Illya rolls his eyes. “Why are you here? If it is for your own guilty conscience, I would rather sleep. It has been very long night.”

“It’s not…” Napoleon sighs. He is, despite his extensive and well-deserved reputation as a libertine, a seducer, and a cad, actually very bad at this. When it matters. “No, it’s not that.”

“What, then?”

Napoleon picks up a water glass from the side table, tilts it to one side, watching the reflection of the monitor lights in the surface. Avoiding Illya’s penetrating gaze, mostly. “I don’t have any family living,” he says, after a long moment. “That day, when we sank the _Diadema_ , she said that she would destroy what’s left of my family. My mother died years ago; I have no siblings. No living family, at least not any that I know. No one for Victoria to use against me.”

“So,” Illya says slowly. “You are saying that we, Gaby and I, are your family. That is why we were taken.”

“Gaby is. You’re… well. _Family_ isn’t quite the right word.”

Illya’s mouth curves down slightly. Absurdly, he actually looks hurt. “I see.”

“I’m pretty sure you don’t,” Napoleon says, and makes a face, annoyed with Illya, and himself, and the whole damn world. “Look, just…”

He hesitates for another moment, then sets the glass down, leans over the bed, and cups Illya’s face gently with one hand. He sees Illya’s eyes widen slightly, getting it, an instant before he leans down and kisses him softly on the mouth.

He keeps it brief, quick and friendly and closed-mouthed, and then he pulls back, licks his lips. Reminds himself that it’s not like Illya is in any condition to beat him bloody if he’s read this whole situation wrong. Contrary to popular belief, he’s been rejected before. He knows he can survive it.

Illya’s cheeks are red, and he’s staring at Napoleon. He doesn’t look angry, but he does look, well, flabbergasted. Slowly, he brings up his good hand up to touch his lips.

“So,” Napoleon says, as lightly as he can manage. “There’s that.”

“I see,” Illya says after a long moment, letting his hand drop. “Not family, then.”

“No.”

Illya lets out a breath of something that it takes Napoleon a moment to identify as laughter. He closes his eyes, wheezing, and then opens them and looks at Napoleon. “Come here.”

“You’re not going to hit me, are you?” Napoleon asks, feeling as though a large weight has toppled off of his chest. He can’t even manage to feel slightly affronted at being laughed at. Gaby will probably do it too, the next time she sees him.

“I will not hit you. Come here, Cowboy.”

Napoleon goes.

The second kiss is anything but brief.


End file.
